Law Professor Says Obama Issuing Executive Order That Will Stop Deportation Of Many Undocumented Immigrants Is 'Well Within The Law'
By Rich Zeoli
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) – Ilya Somin, a Law Professor at George Mason University and Contributor to the Washington Post stated that President Obama is well within the law in issuing an executive order that will stop the deportation of many undocumented immigrants.
Somin told Rich Zeoli on Talk Radio 1210 WPHT that every Presidential administration prioritizes laws based on their political agenda, and in doing so, this order from the President is not the extreme overstep that his Republican opponents claim.
"I don't think the fact that they have such broad discretion is always necessarily good, but it is perfectly legal. If the President had to enforce to the hilt every single federal law, not only would that be impossible, but it would also mean that every single President, for the last hundred years or more, has been in violation to that particular supposed duty."
He stated it is not reasonable to expect any administration to enforce every statute with equal vigor.
"We currently have thousands and thousands of federal laws on the books, so many that it's impossible for any administration to enforce more than a small fraction of them, therefore, both this administration and every one of its predecessors for many decades has had to pick and choose based on policy considerations, which offenders they're going to go after and which ones they won't."
Somin, rejecting the claim that this order broadens Presidential authority, said the way to truly limit the purview of the Executive Branch is to significantly reduce the amount of laws on the books.
"I don't think it's an expansion. It's simply a continuation of the fact that we have way too much federal law for any President to enforce more than a small fraction of it. That means Presidents have a lot of discretion to pick and choose. Like you, perhaps, I'm bothered by that, but the solution is not to decry the discretion, but rather, to cut back the scope of federal law, so that the federal government really could enforce all of it and also limit federal law to such offenses on which there is a broad consensus that they really are serious crimes and really should be punished. That way, if the President fails to punish them, he would suffer a serious political backlash."
